


Mind the Squirrels

by MadameRed



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Crack, M/M, Shenanigans, brief sex scene, keith this is why we can't have nice things, misuse of books, misuse of bookshelves, misuse of the entire library, misuse of the teen reading section, put the knife down you are in a library, threats made unto squirrels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-01
Updated: 2017-02-01
Packaged: 2018-09-21 07:23:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9537782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadameRed/pseuds/MadameRed
Summary: and the knife wielding man chasing them.Based off my library au in which the people of a town apparently in the Twilight Zone think that the goings-on of their local library are totally normal. Keith's personal mission in life is to murder rodents and fuck Lance. Allura's mission is to stop Keith at all costs, even if that means commanding a monopoly on jalapenos in a fifty mile radius. Shiro just wants to keep his hair from going grey prematurely.





	

**Author's Note:**

> _Dedicated to majjale on tumblr, who is a true blessing._

“Do you think you can bring the book back on time?” Lance asked, holding the book over his shoulder and away from the hands of the young man in front of the desk. 

“Do you think you could mind your damn business?” he groused. Lance tutted at him.

“This precious little book is my business, my tardy friend.” He reluctantly offered the book to the man, who snatched it quickly and scowled heavily at Lance before turning and marching away from the front desk and out the open door. Shiro popped his head out from around the Eastern Medicine shelf, pouting at his coworker. 

“You know the more you pester him, the later he returns his books,” he said. 

“And then we collect the late fees!” Lance cackled. Shiro rolled his eyes. He ducked back behind the shelves, muttering to himself about the ineptitude of the people he was forced to work with. Allura walked in just then, carrying a few plastic bags from the local pet store. Her jaw was set as she hurried past, pressing a finger to her lips in Lance’s direction before scurrying to the far eastern side. She stuck her elbow out and smacked Shiro’s back as she went past, and he startled, shoving a book too far back onto the shelf. 

“Come _on_ , before he comes back up,” she whispered. He looked down at the bags with wide eyes and grinned excitedly, abandoning his cart of books and hurrying after her. Lance watched them with a friendly, judgmental eye.

“My _gawd_ , just fuck already,” he grumbled. He reached below the counter and pulled out the Clorox wipes, grimacing at the thought of disinfecting the Teen Room. He was a teenager once, he knew _exactly_  what they did when they were given any bit of free reign. The desk that served as Pidge’s throne was fully functional, but she rarely spent any time presiding over her realm, as the ancient mainframe was in the basement. So the room went unmonitored, because cameras were expensive and Coran was cheap. It was easy enough to put a binder up in the small window on the wooden door, blocking anyone from witnessing pale asses shoved in the air. 

Lance would know, okay? He’s pretty sure he started the trend.

“N-not a squirrel!” a tentative voice said as loudly as they dared.

Lance cackled to himself again and turned to the chalkboard he’d bought specifically for keeping track of how many people fed Keith’s paranoia. He popped the cap on a pink chalk marker and put another tally mark - the thirty-sixth one that day - below the big letters that spelled ‘Please Don’t Mind the Nuts’, with ‘or the squirrels’ scribbled in tiny, cramped writing beneath it. Allura had doodled little pictures of squirrels and mice running from a red stick figure with fangs and claws in the corner. Shiro had rolled his eyes at that, too, but Allura was the branch manager. 

“Thank you!” Lance called to the poor patron, who peeked their head in to reveal their fierce blush, before waving slightly and vanishing again. Lance smirked to himself and grabbed up the disinfectant wipes again, resigning himself to his temporary fate of scrubbing he-damn-well-knew-what off the pleather chairs. And the door. And the walls. And the coffee table. 

Ugh.

He wandered into the drafty foyer just as the door to the basement swung open, revealing Keith, carrying an armful of books. His expression immediately fell out of its resting bitch face when he saw Lance, smiling warmly at him. Lance brightened, eyelashes fluttering, eyes crinkling as his cheeks were pressed up by the smile he couldn’t, wouldn’t, didn’t want to suppress. 

“Hey there, Rodent Dundee,” Lance said, shooting a finger gun at his boyfriend. Keith immediately frowned.

“Ass,” he grumbled.

“You love mine,” Lance sang. He began ascending the stairs to the second floor, knowing Keith would follow. He also may have swung his hips for a little extra enthrallment, but whatever. He was shameless, Keith followed, it all worked out.

“I’m surprised you’re not hissing in the sunlight now that you’ve come out of your cave,” he said. 

Keith resisted the urge to trip him. 

“You’re funny. Don’t quit your day job,” he deadpanned. 

“You’re less tense since Shiro put up that note,” Lance observed, driving the conversation away from their usual banter.

“I’m just surprised people listen to it,” Keith chuckled. Lance pushed open the door to the Teen Section and held it open for Keith, who swanned through with a dramatic flutter of eyelashes at his boyfriend. “What a gentleman.”

“Only for you, babe,” Lance purred with a bow and a wink. Keith set his books down on Pidge’s desk. He looked at the disinfectant wipes in Lance’s hand.

“Cleaning day?” he asked. Lance shuddered just a little, nodding in defeat. Keith reached out and took his free hand. “I’ll help. I want to check the traps in there anyway.” They wove through the shelves of trashy teen romance novels and manga to get to the study room. The whole thing was a terrible idea, but not even Shiro had been able to convince Coran to tear down the solid walls and put up glass ones instead. With just _one_  camera, _please_. But the building was historic, Coran insisted, and he would absolutely not jeopardize the integrity or value of such a stately, magnificent edifice of learning and knowledge. Or so he said.

Keith and Lance stepped inside. It was still neat from the night before, indicating that no one had been up here since Pidge had straightened it up. But Lance knew better to think that it was clean. Every day he fought the urge to shine a blacklight around the room, but he really didn’t want to have to light the whole thing on fire and call it a lost cause. It was a small enough room, though, and they each grabbed a few wipes and began scrubbing at the chairs. Three chairs, a loveseat, an end table, and a coffee table scattered with magazines were all the room held. Lance wiped down the inside of the door and tossed the used wipe into the bin by the chair. He turned around to see Keith bending obscenely over the loveseat, his ass sticking out and squirming as he shoved a wipe between the cushions. 

Lance’s pulse quickened, and his gaze became heavy lidded and foggy as he licked his lips. He shoved the coffee table out of the way with his knee and crowded behind Keith, gripping his waist and grinding against his ass. His cock jumped when Keith immediately pushed back. He craned his head to look back at Lance, his violet eyes hooded and tempting, a smirk on his lips. 

“Couch’s clean,” he murmured. He straightened and turned around, grinning at the way Lance’s hips jolted against his. “Wanna re-christen it?”

Lance grinned and grabbed the front of Keith’s shirt, dragging him in for a hot kiss. 

He would absolutely have fun defiling the integrity of this stately, magnificent edifice, and he didn’t need glass walls to do it.

\---

Pidge crawled across the top of one of the wide bookshelves. She had a little bag of peanuts and mouse pellets clenched in her teeth. 

 _Not much dust up here. I wonder if Shiro White really can talk to them_ , she mused. _Maybe he can convince them to clean the bathrooms, too._  She crawled to the far end of the bookshelf and peered into the shallow dish. It was empty, so she sat up on her knees and dumped the contents of the baggie into it. 

“Okay guys, that’s the last one!” she said to Shiro and Hunk, who were stabilising each end of the bookshelf. “Left side!”

“Pidge, wait-!” Shiro gasped. With a whoop of laughter, she rolled right off the left side of the bookshelf.

She fell right into Shiro’s arms, grin still in place. Shiro let out a grunt, stepping backward twice and being very aware of how close he came to the shelf behind him. 

“My hero!” she crowed, wrapping her arms around his neck. He glared down at her.

“You’ve _really_  got to stop doing that,” he chastised. “I might not catch you in time one day.” Pidge rolled her eyes and hopped out of his arms.

“Bullshit, champ. I’m entirely too precious to you to let me crack like an egg all over the floor,” she said, brushing the dust off her jeans. Hunk walked up to them, looking anxious.

“Can’t we just get a ladder?” he asked. Shiro gestured to Hunk, then looked at Pidge pointedly.

“I agree. You’re killing us, Pidge,” he nearly whined. “Plus, I’m getting old. My knees could give out.” Pidge let out a guffaw of laughter, slapping Shiro’s bicep. 

“Gonna need some hip waders after that one, Shiro,” she sighed, wiping a tear from her eye and wandering off. Shiro’s eyes widened and he cocked his head to the side like a six-foot-three puppy on two legs.

“Huh?” 

Pidge stopped in her tracks, tossing a mockingly sultry look over her shoulder.

“Because the shit’s getting deep.”

Hunk snorted in aborted laughter, and Shiro pressed his fingers into his eyes until he saw stars. 

The basement door banged open and Lance and Keith emerged, looking thoroughly disheveled and shamelessly smug. Lance took his place behind the main desk, and Keith froze up, eyebrow twitching, as he saw the remnants of dust on Pidge’s knees. He looked at Hunk and Shiro sharply, and Pidge swore viciously under her breath because neither of them could manage to _not_  look guilty under scrutiny. What shitty liars.

“What the hell were you doing?” Keith grit out, glaring down at Pidge. She crossed her arms.

“Feeding the babies while you were distracted,” she answered boldly. Keith gasped and whirled around to stare at Lance.

“You knew?” he demanded. 

“I mean, sort of, yeah, technically,” Lance answered quickly. “If it helps, I really _did_  want to eat your ass, though.” Hunk shrieked and covered his ears. Shiro sighed, patting his friend’s shoulder. Keith flushed bright red, Lance grinned salaciously and waggled his eyebrows. Pidge frowned. She dug into her pocket and withdrew a pack of gum, whipping it at Lance’s face. 

“Eat _that_ ,” she ordered.

\---

“What are those?!” Keith’s screech echoed throughout the library. A few patrons glanced up, but upon seeing Keith shaking in barely suppressed fury, they went back to their books or computers with hardly a shrug. 

Allura dashed in front of the colourful plastic cage, blocking it from Keith’s view. She crossed her arms and glared right back at him.

“It’s just a little house-”

“That is a fucking _condo_ ,” Keith corrected savagely, pointing at it. “Why is it so elaborate?”

“Because you stress them out!” she accused. She strode forward and jabbed a finger into his chest. “You set out traps and I have half a mind to tell Hunk that they’re all poisoned!” Keith’s glare darkened.

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Oh, I would.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Watch me.”

“No balls.”

“I - what?” Allura blinked. Keith crossed his arms.

“You heard me. You don’t have the hacky sacks to tell him _shit_ ,” he declared. Blue eyes glimmered wickedly as they narrowed, her lips pursing together. She glanced back at the colourful mouse habitat and then poked Keith hard in the chest again.

“Touch that cage and I will personally see to it that your little lunchtime adventures are so interrupted that your balls are as blue as Lance’s pretty little eyes,” she whispered viciously. Keith’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped.

“That’s cold, princess,” he gasped. He pouted at her. “I thought we were friends.” She smiled placatingly at him, stepping forward and hugging him gently.

“We are, sweetheart.” She pulled back, but kept her hands on his biceps, her fingertips digging into his muscles. “But I will not hesitate to destroy you if you hurt my children.” 

\---

Two days later, a larger, more elaborate condominium, appeared in the opposite corner of the library. There was a little red runner leading up to the entrance, along with a generous pile of squirrel and mouse food. A tiny flag flew atop it with a crudely drawn picture of Allura enslaving the mice and forcing them to work on a chain gang. 

“What the hell is this?” Allura demanded of Lance one day. Lance didn’t even look up from the customer he was helping.

“Oh, that’s Keith’s Poison Palace,” he answered distractedly.

“It’s _what_?!”

\---

“Do you really think the mice and squirrels will come up here for the food, Allura?” Hunk asked, burrowing his face further into his scarf against the harsh wind on the roof.

“I hope so,” Allura said, sounding less than hopeful. “Did you leave the signs out?” Hunk sighed.

“I did, but, Allura, I don’t think they can read,” he suggested. Allura waved him off.

“Nonsense, Shiro’s been teaching them,” she said dismissively.

“ _Oh._ ”

_\---_

Lance crept out the front door, his Evil Genius™ grin firmly in place. Shiro was upstairs with Pidge, Hunk and Keith were in the basement, and Allura was in a corner somewhere trying to convince the rodents that the library was a great place to start a family and raise the youngin’s. There were a few people in the library that afternoon. Two young women, college students maybe, studying at the computers to the left. There was an older man perusing the CD table just in front of the desk, and a teenaged boy was writing his information down for the silent auction next to the desk. None of them needed his help, hadn’t needed his help for the past twenty minutes. 

Without fully exiting the building, he twisted his body around and looked at the book dropoff chute. Shiro had so helpfully taped a note to it after Keith nearly had an apoplectic coronary upon his discovery that the squirrels had absconded with his pistachios. The kind citizens of their beloved town very thoughtfully obeyed the note, screaming their vocal captcha down the chute before they tossed their books in. Keith had relaxed considerably after the success of the note. 

Lance, however, was nothing if not a beautiful, shit-stirring, chaos loving boyfriend. 

So he very gleefully opened the hatch and then slammed it shut, without saying a word. 

He skipped back to the desk and made a show of flipping through a magazine, and he’d just managed to wipe the smile from his face when the basement door burst open and Keith charged into the library, a bowie knife clenched between his teeth, a literal rope net in one hand and a hammer in the other. His eyes were wide and wild and he fell to his hands and knees, pressing his face to the floor and looking underneath the tables. The gentleman at the CD table stepped over him as he moved to the other side. 

Lance watched, barely holding his shit together, as Keith crawled across the floor toward the computers. The girls picked up their feet as he shuffled beneath the long table, lifting wires with his knife.

“You ladies didn’t happen to see a mouse, or perhaps a squirrel, run through here, did you?” he asked politely.

“Not that I remember,” one of the girls said. 

“Thank you. Sorry for the disturbance,” he said, sticking the knife back into his mouth and crawling ever on.

Pidge emerged from the basement a moment after Keith had vanished under the singular study cubicles. She approached the desk and leaned on the counter, eyes watching as Keith roved as silently as he could. 

“He lit out of the basement like the crust of the earth opened up and a demon bit his ass. Did another squirrel get in?” she asked.

“Nah, just me fuckin’ with him,” Lance cackled. “What’s up, short stack?” 

“Oh, just waiting for the techies to show up,” she replied innocently. When Pidge said anything innocently, it meant she was as guilty as an alcoholic in a wine cellar. Lance approved.

He couldn’t even ask the details of her newest scheme when Haxus, one of the techs at ZarKomputers, walked through the door, looking confused. 

“Oh, hey Haxus,” Lance greeted innocently. Pidge saluted him with two fingers. “What’s up?”

“Well, something odd happened to the computers in our shop, and we were wondering if you had the same issue here,” he said, leaning to glance at the row of computers to the left. He looked up, something catching his eye. That something was Keith, hanging upside down from the banisters of the second floor. The rope net was in his teeth now.

“Squirrels?” Haxus asked conversationally, jerking his thumb in Keith’s direction. 

“My baby is _very_  dedicated,” Lance said, equal parts smitten and entertained.

“So what’s up with your rigs?” Pidge asked, suddenly very interested.

“Well, the webcams came on. All of them. Even on our personal laptops. We thought it might’ve been a hacker, but even Slav couldn’t find any trail or signature,” he explained. His brow furrowed. “And then Leekspin started playing. We can’t turn it off.” There was definitely a whine in his voice. Pidge raised an eyebrow.

“Well it’s definitely a hacker,” she said.

“Obviously,” Haxus huffed. 

“I’ll help you if you buy me a pizza,” Pidge offered. Haxus’ expression relaxed into a relieved smile. 

“Done.”

Lance was impressed at the lengths Pidge would go to in order to not pay for pizza. 

\---

There was a tiny café on the second floor, next to the children’s section. It was usually noisy anyway, which made it the perfect place for a coffee grinder. The Blends of Marmora had the best frappucinos in the city, and every branch owed its success to the original location in the library. 

Allura had been following Keith religiously since the poisoned mouse condo appeared (which she took to the roof and lit on fire, snapchatting Keith a video of it). The only place he seemed that he could escape her was in the café, because she absolutely hated the smell of coffee. So he stood behind the counter, having a marvelous conversation with Thace the barista, perfectly smug in the knowledge that she had her face pressed against the glass door, glaring at him. 

“No, that’s not going to help,” Thace said as he poured a black roast for a customer. “You’ll just get blood on the books.”

“Well, what do you suggest?” Keith asked somewhat petulantly. 

“Why not be preventative instead of reactive? They hate spicy scents,” he suggested. 

“Are you suggesting I grind jalapeños into paste and smear it all over the building?” 

 _What the fuck_ , Thace thought. _What is wrong with these people?_

Allura shoved the door open, pinching her nose shut with her fingers. 

“What awful ideas are you giving him, Thace?” she demanded. Thace turned on the coffee grinder.

“Nothing, Allura!” he shouted.

\---

“All of this is getting ridiculous,” Shiro muttered. “You haven’t stolen anyone’s food since Allura started feeding you.” He passed the squirrel another shelled peanut and popped one into his own mouth. It chittered at him, scurrying up to his hand and pawing at his finger for another. Shiro obliged. 

“You haven’t destroyed a single book, either. I don’t know why he doesn’t just let it all go,” he sighed. “Maybe if I buy him a new bag of pistachios and say it’s from you guys?” He passed the squirrel another peanut. “I just hope you know that the rest of us kind of see you all as mascots of the library,” he said fondly. He reached forward slowly and gave the squirrel a gentle scratch behind its ears. 

“So that’s how you all feel, is it?”

Shiro startled so badly he scared the squirrel into running off. Keith was in the doorway of the break room, glaring mutinously at his oldest friend. 

“Traitor.”

Shiro rolled his eyes for the six hundredth time that month and decided that he needed to cut his hours back here if he wanted to maintain his sanity. 

\---

“Uh, the door won’t open,” Shiro gulped. He shoved against it with his shoulders, but it didn’t so much as budge. 

“Wait, so we’re stuck in the room where books go to die?” Pidge asked, scowling and kicking at a pile of old paperbacks. It toppled into Shiro’s legs. He turned and fixed her with a withering scowl. She ignored him and pulled her cell phone out of her pocket. “Oh christ, of course this is literally the only place in this building that I don’t have service,” she grumbled. 

“It’s like a bad rom-com,” Shiro laughed.

“If you wait to kiss me right before someone opens the door and catches us, I will hit you,” she threatened. Shiro sighed and tried the door again. Nada. 

“Shiro, your tits are bigger than mine. Put some ass behind it and break the damn door down!” Shiro flushed, crossing his arms and cupping his pecs. 

“They’re not _tits_ ,” he hissed. “And I’m not breaking the door.” Pidge groaned and knocked another stack of paperbacks over. 

Then she got an idea. An awful idea. The Pidge had a wonderful, awful idea. 

She ducked behind a wall of books while Shiro was humming at the door, rubbing his chin. She picked up a copy of Robert Frost’s poetry and flung it at him, quickly ducking behind her book wall as it collided with his solid back. Shiro whipped around with a gasp, eyes wide.

“Really?” he asked.

“This is war!” came the muffled reply. A paperback of Don Quixote flew at him. He dodged it, and scrambled for cover along the opposite wall, burrowing behind his own wall of books. He picked up a stack of five or six of them and hurled them like a stone boulder flung from a trebuchet, damaging the enemy’s defenses. Two stacks toppled inward, falling on top of a squawking Pidge. 

“Ack! He’s penetrating our defenses!” Pidge shrieked, launching a volley of several more books over the remaining bits of her wall. Shiro buried his head in his hands, fighting down a flush and biting back a laugh, even as several of his own book-defenses fell onto his head. He threw another book boulder at her. She squealed as the last bits of her book wall crumbled on top of her. “The queen demands a parley!”

“The rebel king only accepts surrender,” Shiro declared, throwing another book at her. Pidge snorted.

“A queen never surrenders, she only negotiates,” she said. “Here’s the deal: you name me Queen of the Corpse Books and I let you live. Resist, and all you will know in the future is mothballs and dog-eared pages.”

Dog-eared pages were the absolute _worst_. 

“I’ll take your silence as acceptance. Now, help me build my throne.”

So they constructed a throne of books with a high back that butted against the far wall of the closet so Pidge could lean back, cradled by classic literature. She settled back and crossed her legs, smirking up at Shiro.

“Now swear your fealty to your new queen, rebel,” she demanded. He knelt down before her and took one of her hands in one of his, sweeping it up to his lips to place a kiss on her knuckles. Her fingers jolted around his in surprise, and when he glanced back up at her, she was wide eyed and beet red. Smirking, he pulled his other hand from behind his back and slapped a very thin book into her blushing cheek.

“Never.”

\---

Lance tugged on Keith’s hand, guiding him up the last few stairs leading to the third floor. 

The third floor was mostly used by larger companies and corporations in town for meetings, and occasionally city council meetings would gather there. There were shelves with books as well, and a few tables and squashy armchairs, but the books were mostly political study books, or duplicates of what was already downstairs. 

The left wing of the third floor was unanimously Lance and Keith’s own private fuck-spot. 

So Lance let Keith crowd him up against the bookshelf that was positioned against a wall. They’d learned the hard way that the bookshelves weren’t bolted down and were actually pretty flimsy if two people weren’t bracing it from either side. He wrapped his legs around Keith’s lean waist and let Keith support him, knowing how much it turned Keith’s crank. He scraped his nails down Keith’s back, reveling in the low groan Keith breathed against his neck. He dragged his lips across Keith’s and fumbled with the button and zipper on his pants. Keith smirked against Lance’s lips and staggered them over to a plush chair. He sat back in it and pulled Lance into his lap, where the taller man shoved his shoulders into the back of the chair and kissed him nearly senseless. He nipped his way down Keith’s pale neck, sucking a dark mark just below his neckline. 

Lance made quick work of his own pants, pulling the lube and a condom out of his back pocket as he went. He stripped off his shirt with no hesitation, wrapping it around Keith’s neck and using it to pull him in for another blistering kiss. Two wet fingers prodded at his hole, and he whined happily as they sunk in. A third was added, and by the fourth finger Keith was squirming and groaning as much as Lance. Lance rolled the condom down onto Keith’s length and wasted no time sitting on it completely. Romance could be had later in the week when Keith came over to his place for the weekend for a naked Star Wars marathon. 

Right now, all he wanted to do was ride Keith right through the chair. 

So he did.

Keith had to wear his shirt inside out for the rest of the day, because Lance had come all over the front of it. Everyone noticed.

\---

“Show tunes! The _entire_  soundtrack of Cats has played three times and we can’t get it to stop,” Haxus pleaded desperately. Hunk sympathized, he really did, but there was nothing he could do. Pidge was controlling literally everything in the tech shop across the street from the mainframe in the basement. “This really isn’t making us look good. We had to close the store!”

Hunk’s phone vibrated, and he glanced down at it as Haxus continued rambling about his crisis. 

From Pidge:

_I can’t come up there, I’m sorry, I’m laughing too hard and I think I peed a little._

Hunk sighed. 

“I’ll see if it’s something in the wiring,” he offered a nearly tearful Haxus. 

\---

“Remind me why I’m spending my Friday night cooped up in the basement with all of you when I could be-”

“Lance, if you finish that sentence with anything involving Keith’s person and any sort of bodily liquid, I will strangle you.”

“Well that’s what I could be doing!”

“It’s a _bonding_  exercise,” Allura said vehemently. “Also, we need to convince Coran that the basement isn’t haunted.”

“But it is,” Keith said. 

“We know that, but Coran needs to be absolutely sure that it’s not. So we just need to spend the night here, record some of it, and show him the ‘proof’,” she said wearily. “It’ll be fun.”

“We can tell scary stories!” Hunk suggested. 

“That,” Pidge said, scooting closer to Shiro, “is a terrible idea. This place is _literally_  haunted.” Allura made a dismissive noise as she adjusted the camera, which could be turned on and off by an app on her phone. 

“By squirrels,” Keith mumbled. 

“No, I’m pretty sure it’s by some old farmer who owned this land in the eighteen-hundreds,” Hunk supplied helpfully. Pidge scowled at him. Allura prodded and nudged and kicked at them until they were all huddled in a group on the floor in front of the camera. She hurried around to kneel behind them, and then turned the camera on.

“Hi Coran,” she said brightly. The others grunted or mumbled a greeting. “We’re here, like you wanted, to show you that the basement _isn’t_  haunted, because ghosts aren’t real,” she said slowly.

A crash from across the room decided to prove her wrong. Pidge shrieked and crawled onto Shiro’s back, and Lance buried his head into Hunk’s chest. Allura and Keith stared raptly at the source of the noise, Allura’s hand gripping Shiro’s shoulder.

“Ow, ow, ow,” he whispered, trying to flinch away from her.

There was a skittering sound, something scraping against the cement floor, growing closer. Another noise - a familiar, blood chilling chittering. 

“You son of a bitch,” Keith snarled, launching himself from between Lance and Hunk and scrambling to his feet, snatching up a flashlight as he ran. He bumped into the camera, and it fell over with a clatter. He took off into the near-darkness of the basement, cursing under his breath. Allura vaulted over Shiro’s shoulder, grabbing a flashlight of her own.

“Keith, if you hurt that squirrel, I will fricassee your testicles and serve them to Lance in alfredo!”

And on that very night, Shiro copyrighted eye rolling.

**Author's Note:**

> wow that was one hell of a ride.
> 
> i wrote this in own day so excuse any typos or such things. the formatting is intentional. this was so fun to write and i hope it at least made you smile and maybe breathe air through your nose a little harder than normal.
> 
> the original post for the au is [here](http://sammythemattressthief.tumblr.com/post/156448851592/can-you-imagine-library-au-keith-and-hunk-work) and it got such a positive response that i had to do something about it. it's also kind of a respite and a break from how tense the last chapter of let it burst got. 
> 
> hope u enjoyed reading this as much as i enjoyed writing it! <3  
> 'Blends of Marmora' is directly from [THE_HERO](http://archiveofourown.org/users/THE_HERO/pseuds/THE_HERO) because it made me choke on my dr. pepper.
> 
> p.s. pidge is a mtf trans girl, take that transphobes.


End file.
